DM2N, the project-developement arm of Zurich-based architects EM2N, have completed the conversion of a 1961 supermarket into five ‘hall houses’, which retain the volume of the original structure. (more…)

Tue 22.9.

This holiday home in the Swiss Alps was designed by the Zurich-based EM2N Architects. Externally the house varies the ubiquitous theme of the chalet with dark wood cladding and small window openings to create the image of a chalet tower with huge panorama windows.

Holiday home Flumserberg by EM2N, photo by Hannes Henz, courtesy of EM2N

Here in the architect’s words:

Most holiday houses look identical, i.e. like conventional single-family houses. The topography, character and quality of the location are seldom taken into account in the planning. The houses could just as well come from the catalogue of a company that supplies ready-made homes, their architectural expression is accordingly arbitrary. Our design refuses to accept colonising a place at this low level, it represents an approach that relates to the place and the wonderful site beside an alpine field that in summer is a meadow and in winter a ski run.

Photo by Hannes Henz, courtesy of EM2N.

On the one hand the house rises vertically in order to capture the spectacular views on all sides, while on the other hand the alpine meadow around the building is left undisturbed. Apart from a gravel approach route there is no fence, no garden design that alters the appearance of the place.

Photo by Hannes Henz, courtesy of EM2N

As an antithesis to living in separate rooms we developed our design from the hypothesis of a single-room house. There are not separate rooms but only vertical and horizontal zones, each of them fulfilling several functions.